When you ask a little girl what she wants to be when she grows up, the most common answer will be a princess. While more females than males are attending college in the US, the field of engineering is still largely dominated by males (89%). Seeing this disparity in her classes, Stanford engineer Debbie Sterling made it her mission to tackle the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math. She attributes much of this gap to the gender roles perpetuated through children’s toys. The girls’ aisle is filled with dolls and dress up clothes to train future housewives while boys’ are developing spatial skills through toys like K’nex, Legos, and Tinker Toys. While those companies have made pink versions of their toys, they fail to interest little girls because they lack reading, which, studies have shown, is preferred by little girls. Little girls need to develop spatial reasoning too so that they have all of the same opportunities as boys to shape our world in the future. This is why Sterling created Goldie Blox! [Read more...]